RYA30 Jul 2012 19:11
Ryanair's CEO, Michael O'Leary, said:
"As we previously guided, significantly higher fuel costs caused Q1 profits to fall by €40m (from €139m last year's) to €99m. Our 6% traffic growth combined with a 4% rise in ave. fares led to an 11% increase in Revenues. Ancillary sales grew by 15% to €286m (outpacing traffic growth) accounting for 22% of total revenues. Operating unit costs rose 10% as fuel increased 27% (by €117m) to €544m. Fuel amounted to 47% of total operating costs. We were hedged at $820 pt in Q1 last year compared to $1000 pt this year a price increase of 22%. As a result Q1 will suffer the largest fuel cost rise in FY13 as the pricing differential narrows significantly over the remaining three quarters of the year.
Q1 yield increases were dampened by the EU wide recession, austerity measures, and heavily discounted fares at our new base launches in Cyprus, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Provincial UK and Spain. Excluding fuel, Q1 unit costs rose by 3%, as we rigorously controlled costs, despite a 2% rise in flight crew pay, higher charges at certain airports, and the impact on costs of stronger Sterling against the Euro.
Despite this challenging environment Ryanair continues to grow its traffic across Europe while maintaining the lowest unit costs in the airline industry, and generating healthy profits as evidenced by the 8% after tax margin achieved in the first quarter.
Our new bases (Billund, Budapest, Manchester, Palma, Paphos and Wroclaw) are enjoying high load factors, although some smaller bases such as Budapest, Warsaw and Wroclaw are doing so at very low fares. We announced our 51st base in Maastricht (Holland), which opens in December, and we plan to announce more new routes and up to 2 new bases later this year. We continue to see significant opportunities to grow across Europe as many airports aggressively compete to attract Ryanair's traffic growth.